By PTI
Varanasi: A Dalit student has been protesting outside the Vice Chancellor’s residence at Banaras Hindu University (BHU) for the past 14 days after being allegedly denied PhD admission.
Shivam Sonkar claimed that the BHU’s Department of Peace and Conflict Studies had announced six PhD seats, with three reserved for Junior Research Fellowship (JRF) candidates and three to be filled through an entrance test.
He said he applied for admission via the entrance test and secured the second position. However, there were no reserved seats for Scheduled Caste candidates in the entrance test category, and the three available seats were allotted to General and OBC candidates.
“Additionally, the department failed to fill three seats under the JRF category,” he claimed.
Sonkar argued that the university had the discretion to allocate the unfilled seats to candidates from other categories “but refused” to do so in his case. He began his sit-in protest on March 21, the day after the results were announced.
Acting Vice-Chancellor Professor Sanjay Kumar assured him on April 3 that his admission request would be reconsidered, Sonkar said.
However, the student stated that he will not end his protest until the university grants him admission.
This story was originally published in deccanherald.com. Read the full story here.